


You Will Be Found

by KaytiKazoo



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Minor Lincoln Campbell/Skye | Daisy Johnson, Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25215004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaytiKazoo/pseuds/KaytiKazoo
Summary: Leo Fitz was not born with a soulmark. It was different for each person, of course, some people had their soulmate’s initials, some their first words, some a matching tattoo against their skin. Some people had multiple, most only had one, but very, very few had none. Leo Fitz was not born with a soulmark, but he tried not to let that bother him.
Relationships: Leo Fitz/Lance Hunter/Bobbi Morse/Jemma Simmons
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	You Will Be Found

Leo Fitz was not born with a  soulmark . It was different for each person, of course, some people had their soulmate’s initials, some their first words, some a matching tattoo against their skin. Some people had multiple, most only had one, but very, very few had none. Leo Fitz was not born with a  soulmark , but he tried not to let that bother him. 

His mum always made sure he felt loved regardless of his missing marks, even if his father actively worked against her attempts. 

“Listen, little lion,” she murmured at night, bundling him in her arms and resting her chin on his shoulder, “you will find love. You are not unlovable just because you don’t have a soulmark. Maybe your heart is so big that you are perfect for anyone you meet, and you can’t have the whole world marked on you.”

After his dad left, his mum told him not to put much stock in  soulmarks anyway. Her mum had his dad’s name on the inside of her wrist in his scratchy, slanted handwriting, which she always covered up with a watch that Leo bought for her for Christmas one year. 

He tried not to let it bother him that there wasn’t someone perfect for him, someone who would love him just the way he was the way the movies always said they would. His father said that he was worthless, that he was unlovable, and anyone he loved wouldn’t ever truly belong with him because they were made for someone else, that they were settling for him. He didn’t need love, then, he decided. He didn’t want to feel like someone’s second choice for the rest of his life, so he decided when he was getting ready to move to the Academy, that he wasn’t going to let anyone into his heart. He didn’t need love when he had his work, when he had his inventions. 

Leo Fitz didn’t need to find love to have a full life, he decided, and anyone who said otherwise was wrong. 

* * *

But life decided he was wrong.

He met Jemma Simmons in his first week at the Academy, and he tried to hate her, but Jemma Simmons was intelligent, and kind, and he’d never met someone on his level like that. She smiled like sunshine, and laughed like a summer breeze, and she challenged him on everything, making him be better, learn and strive for more. He’d never met anyone like her.

How could he possibly not love her?

She had two  soulmarks ; lined up neatly along her spine were the initials LH and BM in Jemma’s own neat handwriting. Fitz had tried to prepare himself for them, but when he saw the delicate script against Jemma’s soft skin, and his initials weren’t there, his heart sank. He expected it, since he didn’t have Jemma anywhere on him, but there was a tiny hope inside of him anyway.

He resigned himself to being her friend, though, because even if she never loved him, he could at least be there at her side to keep her safe and happy. It wasn’t a burden, and he’d willingly be there with or without her mark. 

* * *

At the bottom of the ocean, Fitz couldn’t think of any reason why he shouldn’t tell Jemma how he felt. She deserved to know, after all. 

“Yeah, you’re more than that, Jemma. I couldn’t find the courage to tell you, because I know you don’t have my  soulmark , so please, let me show you,” he said, and he pressed the button. 

When he woke up nine days later, his words were gone, and he wasn’t himself. When Jemma left, Fitz felt something break inside of him. She didn’t love him the same way he loved her, and she never would. Her  soulmarks were pointing her somewhere else, and Fitz had known from the beginning she would follow them, but he’d allowed himself to hope.

* * *

When he started seeing Simmons where she wasn’t, it seemed like the worst joke his brain could play on him, but he couldn’t help himself from interacting with her. It wasn’t the real Simmons, but it was the closest he was going to get anymore now that he was broken and she couldn’t handle him like this. 

* * *

Lance Hunter was bright, and encouraging, and made Fitz feel less like a broken toy in the schoolyard everyone avoided. He and Mack felt like tugboats, helping Fitz get going after so long idle. 

Plus, Hunter had gorgeous hands, Fitz noticed on their first mission together, and couldn’t stop noticing afterwards.

“I don’t have an ex. But there was this girl that I like and I told her how I felt but she doesn't feel the same way as I do, so she left,” he said, taking the beer Hunter held out to him. 

“Well, that’s certainly her loss,” Hunter said. 

“This is probably considered taboo, but was she your soulmate?” Mack asked. 

“No,” Fitz said softly. “No, but I still – you know.”

Mack nodded, and he rubbed the place on his forearm that Fitz could see two different marks, scrawling script spelling out the first words his soulmates would say to him, or already had. 

“Have you found yours?” Hunter asked him, looking Fitz over. 

“No,” Fitz said honestly, because you couldn’t find someone who didn’t exist, after all, not that Hunter or Mack needed to know that the universe had deemed him not worthy of a love like that.

* * *

He fell in love with the way Hunter smiled at anything, freely and like it cost him nothing.

He fell in love with the way Hunter ran feather-light touches across Fitz’s skin, and the way he laughed, and the way when he drank a little bit too much, he’d lean into Fitz like he was going to tell him a secret. 

He fell in love, and ached to tell Hunter, but Fitz saw his  soulmarks on his rib when he was training one night. He kept his heart to himself.

* * *

When Jemma returned, Fitz couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. He hadn’t gotten any better since she’d left, but seeing her again, whole and safe in front of him, even if he was angry at her for leaving, for not seeing how much he needed her, he was so glad she’d made it home safe.

* * *

With her came Bobbi Morse, returning from undercover, and was apparently Hunter’s ex-wife, who Fitz had heard him colorfully call a “ hell beast .” She was actually very kind and sweet, and Fitz couldn’t quite understand what had happened between them to cause Hunter’s ire. He supposed, with his little relationship experience, he wouldn’t understand. 

No one wanted to date someone they weren’t marked for, usually. He’d had hook ups and flings. He wasn’t a bumbling virgin anymore, but no one wanted to go on dates and pretend like they had a future when there was someone else their marks were waiting for. And Fitz didn’t want to feel second best. 

His heart, though, ached for someone, for Jemma, for Hunter, and somedays more and more often, for Bobbi. 

* * *

He fell in love with Bobbi’s sunshine hair, and bright ocean eyes. 

He fell in love with how stubborn she was, how strong, how incredible she was, how deceptively smart she was, how she hid it away. He fell in love with her resilience, and her kindness. 

The day he saw her  soulmark during physical therapy, he almost laughed to himself. It didn’t even surprise him, but he’d hoped against hope.

* * *

Fitz figured it out before Jemma did, remembering the LH and BM along her spine.

Lance Hunter.

Bobbi Morse.

He was there when she figured it out, though, the team finally all in the same place for a night, drinking and chatting in the common room together. Fitz was exhausted, but it was rare that he got to look at Jemma, Bobbi, and Hunter all at the same time, so he stayed. 

He wished he hadn’t the minute the talk turned to soulmarks.

“Mine are up here,” Jemma said, tapping between her shoulder blades awkwardly. “Initials in my own handwriting.”

She shifted in her seat, and passed the beer she’d been nursing over to Fitz before pulling the back of her blouse up far enough. Fitz had to remind himself to breathe, seeing the freckled, pale skin of her back, the soft pink lace of her bra, and there, the initials he’d loathed for so long for not being his own. 

“Oh,” she said suddenly, dropping her shirt and turning. “Lance Hunter, Barbara Morse. LH, BM.”

Bingo, Fitz thought. He was glad, though, that if Jemma was destined for anyone, it was them. They’d take care of her.

Daisy stopped and said, “seriously?”

“I mean, I don’t know for sure, but it seems highly coincidental, don’t you think?”

They both turned to Bobbi and Hunter who were looking at each other and seemed to be having a silent conversation.

“Your name, Jemma, it starts with a J, yeah?” Hunter asked finally.

“It does,” she confirmed. Hunter rucked up his shirt on one side to reveal his own marks, two sets of initials just as Jemma had, except they were different handwriting, one stacked on top of the other, JS and BM. 

“This belong to you, love?”

She crossed the circle of chairs to look closer. 

“The JS isn’t my handwriting, but the BM is.”

“I suspected it might be, Bob’s marks are in her own handwriting, and yours are in yours, but mine are yours writing each other’s initials.”

Daisy made a soft sound like a  coo that Fitz felt down into his toes. 

“Can we see yours, Bobbi?” Jemma asked softly, sitting down on the coffee table in front of Bobbi and Hunter. 

Bobbi nodded and shifted forward in her chair to hike up her shirt. The neat, but very small handwriting on her hip clearly showed a JS and right beside it a LH.

Fitz took in another deep breath, reminding himself that he knew that’s how it would be, that he’d been expecting it, that he’d seen them all before. Just because it wasn’t a shock didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. Being this desperately in love with people and not even being on their radar was excruciating.

“What about yours, Daisy?” Hunter asked, tracking Bobbi’s shirt as it fell into place again. 

“I only have the one, it’s a lightning bolt in the center of my chest.”

She in turn lifted her own shirt and peeking out from under her bra was a dark black lightning bolt. 

“For Lincoln?” Fitz asked.

She smiled and nodded.

“Yeah, he has the same one on the inside of his arm.”

“That’s adorable,” he said. 

An alert went off on his phone, distracting him from any other  soulmark talk and from preventing the  soulmark discussion from turning to him. He had to get to the lab, a simulation he’d been running having completed, and he’d never been so glad to beg off from a night off from work.

* * *

It did mean that he saw Hunter and Bobbi in the lab more often, talking to each other civilly, and talking to Jemma. It meant he had to watch Hunter fall in love with Jemma, which was perfectly reasonable for any sane person to do, and Jemma fall in love with him back, and Bobbi smiling on the sidelines, a connecting force. He was happy for them. 

He was.

Some days he had to convince himself that was true.

Some days he had to remind himself that he didn’t deserve them, that they were happy together. 

When Jemma laughed in the lab at a joke Hunter told her, and when Hunter leaned in to press a kiss to Jemma’s cheek, and when Bobbi brushed her hand along Jemma’s arm like a gentle reminder of their connection – he wasn’t jealous. He was happy for them. He wanted them to be happy, all of them, together. He could see how they fit together, and how Jemma would tame Bobbi and Hunter’s edges that used to chafe together, and how Bobbi and Hunter could draw Jemma even further out of her protective bubble. They’d be good for each other.

And even as he stood on the sidelines, destined always for the sidelines, he could be happy for them because them happy was all he ever wanted.

* * *

Hunter sank into a chair in the common room near Fitz while Daisy and Lincoln flicked through channels trying to find a movie to watch for the unofficial movie night. Jemma and Bobbi were settled close to each other on the love seat, with enough room for Hunter, but instead, Hunter took the chair directly next to Fitz’s.

“Oh, what about this one?” Daisy suggested, opening the menu to read the summary. “ _ Soulless _ . Apparently won a bunch of awards a couple years ago. Clara Chase is a business woman taking a  much needed vacation while visiting family in upstate New York, still searching for her soulmate, the one who bears her matching mark. When she meets Thomas Leer, a factory worker from the next town over, she doesn’t think much of him. Until he reveals to her that he’s her soulmate, bearing the same mark. An unsteady, budding romance quickly turns horrific as Thomas takes Clara hostage, and reveals to her his unsavory truth. He was not born with a soulmark.”

Fitz fidgeted in his seat.

“Can you imagine?” Lincoln laughed. His lightning bolt mark was visible as he stretched, arm going over Daisy’s shoulders. He couldn’t imagine, clearly. None of them could.

The group agreed on the movie, and settled in. Fitz watched with his heart in his throat as the only character in the history of media to not have a  soulmark lured the heroine into a trap to make her fall in love with him, and when that didn’t work, captured her and dragged her into a basement in the middle of a wooded forest. 

“You’re  _ sick _ ,” Clara said to Thomas on-screen. She was spunky and brave, even tied to the radiator. You were supposed to root for her to escape, but Fitz could only taste bile. “You’re a monster! The reason you don’t have a  soulmark is because you lack a soul! You’re mean, and heartless, and cruel, and I will never love you. No one will ever love you.”

Fitz blinked back tears, and swallowed down the lump in his throat. 

The only character in the history of media without a  soulmark was irredeemable and a monster. What did that say about him?

* * *

“How’s things with the soulmates?” Fitz asked at the lab one day, watching Simmons jot down notes. 

“Oh! Good,” she said with a laugh and a smile. “Well, things with Bobbi are great, but things with Hunter – they're not going anywhere.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, we all hang out together, and Hunter is nice, and sweet, and every bit the good guy you say he is, but we’ve never been alone. Bobbi gets me alone as often as she can, but Hunter doesn’t seem to want that.”

Fitz couldn’t understand that. Jemma was gorgeous, and intelligent, and fun to be around. Who wouldn’t want to be around her all of the time? 

Of course, Fitz was biased in that he’d been in love with her for a decade, but still. 

“Do you want him to want that?” Fitz asked.

Jemma stopped and considered that, pen poised above her notebook.

“I think so. He is quite handsome, and you speak so highly of him. I wouldn’t mind some attention from him, if he wanted to give me any, of course.”

Fitz hummed. 

“Why?” she asked.

“Can’t I be curious about my best friend’s love life? I’m not showing any prospects here.”

He’d taken the route of pretending like he hadn’t confessed to loving her, and her having told him she couldn’t. If he didn’t acknowledge it had happened, it simply hadn’t. 

* * *

It was interesting to him that Hunter, who was clearly at least enraptured with Jemma, chose not to be alone with her. 

“Hey,” Fitz said after a mission, “how are things going with you and the soulmates?”

“Wonderful,” Hunter said warily. “Why?”

“Can’t a guy be curious?”

“Feels like you have an ulterior motive.”

“No ulterior motive,” Fitz said, throwing his hands up in surrender. “Just curious.”

“Uh-huh,” Hunter said, peeling off his leather jacket to reveal the soft grey  Henley he wore underneath. Fitz’s thought process derailed for a second. “And why are you really asking?”

“It’s,” Fitz said, and looked around to make sure they were alone, “Jemma. She doesn’t think you like her. Because you won’t be alone with her.”

Hunter frowned, and looked Fitz over for a moment.

“Why are you trying to hook me up with her?”

“She’s your soulmate,” Fitz replied. “And I care about her happiness, and yours.”

Hunter nodded.

“I’ll make sure to make her feel less left out. Thanks for telling me, mate.”

Fitz smiled at Hunter, pleased with himself, and completely missed the way Hunter’s eyes tracked over him, and stayed steady on his lips for a moment before Hunter turned away.

* * *

Fitz got caught in another common room hang out late one night. He was exhausted, his hands were particularly  rebellious that day, even if his words came to him easier. Hunter passed him a bottle of beer as he sat down between Hunter and Daisy. Jemma was sat between Hunter and Bobbi on the other side, her hand resting on the arm of his chair casually. 

Fitz could never get over how easy soulmates touched, just little touches of fingertips along bare skin, reminders, anchors. 

He’d never had that with anyone.

The talk turned again to soulmarks, and Fitz sank back in his chair to avoid being spotted, but Daisy was relentless.

“What about you, Fitz?” Daisy asked, sitting forward in her chair. “We’ve all showed you ours. Where are yours?”

“Oh,” Simmons piped up with a grin before Fitz could fumble through some explanation, “Fitz cannot Show and Tell his marks, they’re in a very private place.”

“What? You got  soulmarks on your dick, Fitz?” Daisy laughed.

Fitz wrung his hands around the bottle and said, “that’s not strictly true, Jem.”

She furrowed her eyebrows at him.

“What do you mean? Did you lie to me then?”

“I, I did and I didn’t at the same time. I did lie about placement, I guess. I didn’t lie about you not being able to see them, because they don’t exist.”

The room went quiet, and Fitz felt the  embarrassed flush he’d always dreaded creep up the back of his neck and over his face.

“I don’t understand,” Jemma said.

“I don’t have any soulmarks, Jem, because I don’t have any soulmates.”

This was the part he hated about it the most, the way everyone’s expression turned to pity, Fitz’s sad fate of never knowing the joy and love of a soulmate’s affections settling in their features. 

“No one,” Jemma said, “no one has  _ none _ .”

“You can look me all over; you’re not going to find any. It’s a tiny percentage of the population, .0001 percent the last time I checked, but it is a non-zero percentage that someone is born without soulmarks. I’m just that lucky .0001 percent,” he said. 

There was a voice at the back of his mind, which suspiciously sounded like his father, telling him that it was the world that was lucky, no one got stuck with a wet-sock of a person like him. .0001 percent was an astronomically low chance, and yet... 

Fitz fidgeted in his chair.

“This is kind of why I don’t tell anyone,” he said, gesturing to the group around them, the way their eyes were stuck on him. 

“Sorry,” Daisy said. “I’ve never met someone who didn’t have any before. I didn’t even consider that you could have none. That must be so weird, knowing there’s no one out there perfectly made for you.”

That stung in a way that Fitz wasn’t expecting.

“Daisy!” Simmons chided on Fitz’s behalf.

“Oh! I didn’t mean it like that! I’m sorry!” Daisy said, blushing a deep crimson as she realized. It was the rhetoric he’d grown up hearing from his dad, and had internalized, but it was still different when someone else said it out loud. “There is someone out there for you, Fitz. You’re an absolute catch, no matter what some nonsense marks say. I’d date  you if, you know, I weren’t already dating Lincoln.”

He laughed.

“Thanks, Daisy. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Thankfully, Bobbi tactfully changed the conversation, and Fitz went to bed early, claiming a headache. 

“Is it anything serious?” Jemma asked, following him to the common room door. He caught her hand and smiled.

“No, Jem, I’m okay. Go enjoy being with your soulmates. I just need to lie down.”

* * *

He didn’t go lie down. Instead, he headed for the lab, mind a buzz with thoughts and questions. He shooed the remaining techs from the lab, saying they needed to get some sleep, they were useless if they were strung out on Red Bull and caffeine pills. Mostly, he just wanted to be alone.

Except Hunter followed him into the lab sometime later, and leaned against the table he was working at. 

“Hi,” he said.

“How’d you know I was here?”

“You didn’t have a headache,” Hunter replied. “You didn’t get that squinty eyed, slightly unfocused look you get when you have a headache. I figured I’d find you here instead of sleeping like Jemma told you to.”

Fitz looked up from his project, and stopped working at the look in Hunter’s eyes.

“What’s up?” Fitz asked, voice going reedy. Hunter was studying him closely, his posture controlled, not loose like Fitz would have expected. 

“I have questions,” Hunter asked, stepping closer to him. “If you’re up for them.”

“Go for it.”

“Let me know if they’re too personal.”

“Just ask your questions, Hunter.”

“Have you been with someone ever?”

“Do you mean have I slept with someone or have I dated someone?”

“Both,” Hunter replied.

“Yes, I’ve had sex, and I’ve been on dates, but I haven’t had a relationship that lasted longer than a month or so. No one wants to date when there’s no future there. My name isn’t on anybody’s wrist or wherever, we’re not destined for each other, and they’re just looking for that person. I don’t blame them. And Daisy is technically right. There’s no one out there perfectly made for me the same way everyone else is.”

Hunter frowned, and said, “I don’t agree.”

“Come on,” Fitz said with a forced laugh, turning into Hunter. He was so  close, Fitz could see the gold flecks in his hazel eyes. He’d never been that close before. “It’s in the definition of soulmate.”

Hunter touched Fitz’s hip, and Fitz’s thoughts stalled, crashing into one another like a 5-car pile-up on the highway. 

“What are you doing?” Fitz asked.

“Would you date someone with a soulmark?” Hunter continued like Fitz hadn’t spoken. 

“Yes.”

“How about two?”

“Yes.”

Hunter hummed. 

He was so close that Fitz could smell the beer and the sweets from the coffee table on his breath.

“Last question. Can I kiss you?”

“Yes.”

Hunter didn’t kiss him right away, but stepped into his space so they were flush against each other. He leaned in and dragged the tip of his nose along Fitz’s cheek, his lips ghosting over his jaw. One hand stayed on his hip, just fingertips, while the other touched his neck, thumb stroking over the underside of his jaw where his stubble started. He left a small kiss to the corner of Fitz’s lips, and then trailed small kisses across his lower lip slowly, catching Fitz’s eyes between each one. Then, finally, when Fitz  swore he was about to explode, Hunter kissed him proper, slow at first. 

Fitz had been so preoccupied with Hunter’s hands, watching them work, doing small tasks for Fitz when his own wouldn’t cooperate, that he hadn’t thought to pay attention to his mouth, which was obviously a mistake. Hunter knew how to kiss, how to make Fitz  weak in the knees, and when Hunter slipped his tongue past Fitz’s lips, Fitz had to hold onto the table to keep himself standing. 

“Hold,  uhh – hold on,” Fitz muttered finally, even though he didn’t want to stop anything. Hunter released him but stayed close.

“You okay, love?”

“You have two soulmates,” Fitz said.

“I do,” Hunter agreed.

“Why are you not with them?”

“Because I want to be with you right now.”

He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

“I don’t understand.”

Hunter traced his thumb over Fitz’s cheekbone and Fitz could not stop himself from leaning into it. No one had ever touched him like that. He’d had his fair share of hook ups and flings, fucking in the dark and in back corridors where anyone could walk in. He’d been on a couple first dates. But he’d never been touched with reverence and gentleness, never with the care Hunter was showing him.

“I want Bobbi and Jemma in my life, sure, because they’re my soulmates. They’re beautiful, they’re smart, they outpace me in every way and that’s exciting. But I also get a choice in who I’m with. I get a choice who I spend time with, who I kiss, who I take out on dates, who I make a life with. I don’t believe that rhetoric about soulmates being the only people you can love, because that’s just bullshit. I’ve loved a lot of people in my life, much more than the two soulmates the universe arbitrarily picked out for me.”

Fitz couldn’t understand that. 

“We can talk to the girls about it, if you want,” Hunter said. “I’m sure they’d be fine with this, or even more.”

“Even more?” Fitz asked.

“Like you haven’t noticed they like you,” Hunter scoffed, and then paused when Fitz frowned at that. “You did notice, right? Jemma looks after you, making sure you’re sleeping, you’re eating well, you’re doing your physical therapy. She makes sure you’re okay because she cares about you. And Bobbi, Bobbi has not stopped talking about you since you met, which I certainly understand. She talks about how smart you are, and how she’s so impressed with your resilience and your courage. Stop making that face, Fitz, you’re everything she thinks you are.”

“I don’t get it.”

“What?”

“This, any of you. I don’t understand how –”

He tripped over his words, trying to get to what he actually meant and finding only roadblocks. 

“You don’t understand how we’d want you?” Hunter asked quietly. 

Fitz could only nod, frustrated with his own brain.

“Soulmates are good, but they’re not the only relationship in the world you can have. Bobbi and I were married before, you know that, and it was disastrous. We fought all the time, and we were just unhappy with each other towards the end. We’re soulmates but that doesn’t mean we’re good together.”

“You seem to be okay now.”

“Maybe,” Hunter said with a shrug, brushing his fingers along the shell of Fitz’s ear. “You’re purposefully missing my point, though, love.”

“I’m not,” Fitz said. “I really don’t – I don’t get it.”

“Would you go on a date with me?” Hunter asked. “ So I can show you exactly what I mean.”

“I don’t know,” Fitz said, “I want to, but – but we shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

Fitz purposefully touched the  spot on Hunter’s ribs where he’d seen the  soulmarks , those delicate initials that would never be his own. 

“Fitz,” he sighed, but Fitz dropped his hands from Hunter. 

He couldn’t do this; he couldn’t destroy whatever Hunter, Bobbi, and Jemma were building, what they could have. 

He didn’t need love, he had SHIELD and the team. 

“We shouldn’t,” Fitz said, and he ducked from Hunter’s arms. He left Hunter standing in the lab, his work still spread out across the table abandoned. 

Walking away from Hunter, from his gentle touches and passionate kisses, was broken glass under his skin, shattered and cutting away at his muscles and nerves where no one could see him bleed. 

* * *

“What did you do?” Simmons asked letting herself into his room the next morning while he was still asleep. He hadn’t slept well, still picturing the confusion and hurt on Hunter’s face through the night, only falling asleep with the dawn he couldn’t see. 

“Wha?” he grumbled, not even bothering to lift his head from the pillow. 

“What did you do, Leopold?”

She sank onto the edge of the bed and smacked his shoulder hard.

“Ow,” he groaned, and tried to turn away from her but she had the blankets pulled tight around him so he didn’t have any room to actually move and gave up.

“Why did I find Hunter upset this morning? What did you do to him?” 

She jabbed him in the side with her little bony fingers.

“I didn’t do – I didn’t.”

He stopped, unsure of what he didn’t do. He didn’t sleep with someone else’s soulmate. He didn’t sleep with  _ Jemma’s  _ soulmate, specifically. He’d certainly slept with other people’s soulmates, but this was Jemma, and it was Bobbi, and they were building something, regardless of what Hunter said. 

“Don’t you lie to me, Leopold Fitz,” she said. “What did you  _ do _ ?”

Before Fitz could respond, Bobbi let herself into his room as well and stopped, seeing Jemma at his bedside.

“What did you do?” Bobbi asked.

“Jesus Christ,” Fitz groaned and pulled the pillow over his head. “What fucking time is it? It’s too early for this.”

His hands were tremoring where he held the pillow, and when Jemma pulled it away from his face, he didn’t have enough of a grip to keep it there.

“I want an actual answer, Fitz.”

He sat up, blinking the spots from his eyes, and checked the time on his clock beside the bed. In total, he’d probably gotten about three hours of sleep on and off. 

“I don’t know, give me a second,” he said, dragging his knees up to his chest and curling himself into a protective ball. 

Bobbi sat down next to Jemma and set her hand on top of his gently. 

“Talk to us.”

“Hunter kissed me,” Fitz said, looking up at her. 

“Don’t sound like you’re sorry,” she said, squeezing his hand. “Kissing Hunter is a religious experience and you don’t have to be sorry for kissing him. What you have to be sorry for is what you did after. Why is he upset?”

“He also asked me on a date, and I said no.”

“Why?” Jemma asked, voice unexpectedly sharp. 

“Because!” Fitz said, voice just as sharp. “I don’t – I don’t have your  soulmarks . I don’t have anyone’s  soulmarks . I’m not meant for –”

He snapped his mouth shut before his father’s words came spilling out.

Jemma’s eyes softened, and she reached out to take his other hand.

“Fitz,” she said  quietly , “you’re not broken, or worthless. Is that what this is about? Your dad?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“What did he say to you?”

“Does it matter?”

“If it’s still hurting you, you need to talk about it so we can get rid of it.”

Fitz sighed and he caught Jemma’s wide brown eyes, a plea in her gaze for him to let her help. She’d used it for years, and it worked every goddamn time. 

“It was always the same things, you know. That I was worthless, and dumb, and would never make anything of myself.”

Bobbi recoiled at that.

“But his favorite was to call me unlovable, that no one would ever want me, and anyone was just settling because they couldn’t find  their soulmate.”

Jemma threw herself into him, forcing him to uncurl or else his knees would end up in her stomach. She wrapped him in her arms, and buried her face into his neck, settling easily in his lap. 

“You’re not unlovable, Fitz. You’ve never been unlovable. Your father was a mean, terrible son of a bitch, and you’re so much better than he ever knew or deserved. I’m going to prove he’s wrong.”

“How’s that?”

“I’m in love with you, Fitz.”

He stopped, and gripped her hips.

“What?”

“I’ve been in love with you since the Academy, but I didn’t want to admit it, because you weren’t my soulmate, but that’s not even true. We may not have soulmarks, but you have always been, and will always be my soulmate, Fitz, just the same as Hunter is and Bobbi is. You are not and have never been hard to love. I’ve loved you since we were kids, and I will keep loving you for the rest of my life.”

Then, she was kissing him, her hands curled around his neck. 

He’d dreamed of this for years, what it would be like to finally kiss her, to have her against him just like this. He’d been wrong about how good it would feel, how gentle it was, how soft she was under his hands, how she tasted, and how good she was at kissing. There was a line of people in the world who had kissed Jemma Simmons, and Fitz wanted to thank every single one before him. He briefly wondered if Bobbi and Hunter were in that line. If not, they were in for a treat.

“Jemma,” he groaned, and she stroked her fingers over his neck as she broke away. 

“Fitz,” she murmured. “You are so easy to love, everyone who meets you knows it. Hunter, Bobbi, they know it.”

“Jemma,” he repeated.

“I love you. And I would appreciate if you would stop running away from this. We don’t care if you’ve got a  soulmark for us or not. We – hold on. Bobbi, can you get Hunter in here? This is really a conversation for all of us.”

“Yeah, one second, though.”

She gestured at Jemma who slid off Fitz’s lap, and Fitz couldn’t understand where she was going for a moment until Bobbi leaned in, and she was kissing him next. Fitz let out the softest whimper into her mouth, unable to stop himself. 

It was short compared to his kiss with Jemma, or with Hunter for that matter, and he wanted to reel her back in as she moved away.

“Stay here, I won’t be long.”

And then, Bobbi left his bunk. 

“I can’t believe you never told me you don’t have a soulmark.”

“It didn’t seem relevant,” he replied as Jemma leaned into him. 

This couldn’t be real. 

He was asleep, and this was a dream. There was no way, just no way at all that Jemma Simmons had kissed him, that Lance Hunter had kissed him, that Bobbi Morse had kissed him, all within 24 hours. 

“Didn’t seem relevant,” she repeated, a little mocking but still fond enough that Fitz couldn’t take it to heart. “You thought no one could love you, Fitz. How could that not be relevant?”

“That was my problem, my burden to carry.”

She kissed his cheek slowly, lips lingering against his skin.

“You’re not alone, though. You’re a good man, and you deserve to be happy.”

“You believe that?”

“I always have.”

Fitz threaded his hand through hers and it felt so good. He’d held her hand before, but not like this. 

They stayed like that, side by side, at the head of his bed. The longer it took for Bobbi to come back with Hunter, the lower they slumped on the bed, until they were cuddled up, laying together, as they fell asleep.

* * *

Bobbi nudged them awake an hour later.

“Sorry, he was being particularly stubborn this morning,” she said, gesturing to where Hunter was standing away from her, arms crossed over his chest. He was guarding himself, keeping himself distant. 

“I’m not being stubborn,” Hunter said. Fitz sat up, and his body hurt in a way it hadn’t in a while. He still had bad days, especially when he hadn’t slept well the night before, and especially after a nap, and he wished it weren’t the case. His brain refused to completely heal, and he suspected that it never would. He’d be like this forever. His limbs were weak as he moved, and Jemma placed her hand on his back between his shoulder blades.

“I’m alright,” he said to Jemma who nodded but kept her hand there anyway, solid and unflinching. 

“Okay, where were we?” Bobbi said. 

“I don’t remember,” Jemma said. “Talked about the father. If I ever meet Alistair Fitz, he’s getting  disintegrated . I’ll build some kind of disintegration ray just for the occasion.”

Fitz laughed softly.

“I think that’s against the Geneva Convention, Jem,” he answered.

“Yes, well, luckily, I’m not at war with him. Yet.”

“Wait,” Hunter said, “what?”

Fitz frowned. He really didn’t want to have to say it again.

“You and Fitz have similar fathers,” Bobbi said. “Fitz has been convinced since he was a wee little lad in Scotland -” Fitz scoffed but didn’t interrupt any further “- that he is not worthy of being loved, and otherwise unlovable. Which is categorically untrue, of course.”

“Of course,” Hunter said in an echo. 

Fitz looked up at Hunter and caught his eyes. He wanted to be closer, so  _ so _ much closer to Hunter than he was. He went to stand and cursed as his knees just gave out.

Jemma smoothed her hand down his back again.

“Stay,” Hunter said, crossing the room to stand in front of Fitz, and then sank to his knees. “Are you okay?”

“Just a bad day for my brain and body’s ongoing terrible relationship,” Fitz replied. 

“What happened last night?” Hunter asked.

“A long time ago, I decided that I didn’t need to find love, because my dad always said that  anyone I was with would just be settling, and I didn’t want to feel like I was a runner up. I decided that I couldn’t feel like a runner up if there wasn’t anyone I loved, but then Jemma happened, and you happened, and Bobbi happened. Even then, I resigned myself to watch you all together, knowing you were happy.”

“That’s not –” Hunter started.

“I’m almost done, I promise,” Fitz said. He chose his words carefully, not wanting to stumble over his tongue this time. “There have been other people that I fancied, but nobody close enough that it mattered. No one stuck around. I didn’t consider the possibility that someone would want to, so when you did, my – I – fucking hell.”

Hunter leaned up and kissed him.

“I know, love,” he murmured into his mouth, leaving small kisses against Fitz’s lips between words. “I know. I didn’t know about your dad, and I’m with Jemma on disintegrating him. I still want you, I always will. You don’t have to worry about that, and I’m not settling. You are not a step down, or some consolation prize. I want you to know that for certain, for you to understand that I absolutely want you unreservedly.”

“I’m sorry,” Fitz started but Hunter hushed him with a kiss. But Fitz had to say it, even if he stumbled over his words. He put a hand on Hunter’s chest. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you last night, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t, and I’m  _ sorry _ . I’ll be better about talking to you.”

“Ahh, that’s where we were,” Jemma piped up. “We, as a collective. We all want you, Fitz, as a part of the  we . And none of us would be settling because we’re not choosing between our  soulmarks and you. If you want, that is, but we want you and each other all at the same time.”

Fitz looked at her, and then back to Hunter, and then up behind him to Bobbi.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Jemma said, and then leaned down to kiss Hunter. 

Fitz expected some kind of jolt of jealousy at seeing Jemma kiss someone else, or seeing  _ Hunter _ kiss someone else, but instead, he smiled, watching the way Jemma sank into the kiss, a little smile of joy and contentment on her face. 

This is what he’d resigned himself to, of course, seeing them together.

Except, when Jemma pulled away, she moved to kiss Fitz again, just as slow and he could feel that same smile against his own lips. 

“This can’t be real,” he said as she gestured Bobbi to join them. 

“It is real,” Hunter said, hands resting on his thighs still. 

Bobbi nudged Hunter aside and kissed Fitz this time, sinking her hands into his hair. This kiss was deeper than their first, unashamed, unhurried. She tasted of her morning coffee, her tongue slipping into his mouth. When she sank into his lap, Fitz was sure he’d died. 

“Are we sure this is real?” he asked. She eased him back onto the bed, straddling his hips, her weight welcome on top of him.

“It’s real,” she replied. 

When Jemma flopped down beside him, she tangled her hand in his just as Hunter descended on her to capture her mouth in a kiss. Bobbi brought him back to her with another kiss, long and steady.

Even if it wasn’t real, Fitz was going to enjoy every second of this.

* * *

Hunter was half asleep on Fitz’s chest in Fitz’s entirely too small bed, Bobbi on one side of them and Jemma on the other. He was tracking sleepy fingers over Fitz’s chest. 

“What are you thinking about?” Hunter asked with a yawn. 

“You remember that really shitty movie we watched a couple weeks ago?”

“Not specific enough,” Bobbi said from beside Fitz, kissing his shoulder lovingly. 

“ _ Soulless _ ,” Fitz said.

“Yeah,” Hunter grumbled. 

“Did you know that that is the only piece of media that exists with a character with no  soulmark ? And he’s the villain, the guy you’re supposed to hate. It won all these awards and was touted as brave, and daring, as if taking an already  vilified identity and stringing them up in the stockade for people to hate and mock is somehow groundbreaking.”

Bobbi’s hand curled in his shirt protectively.

“They called the movie  _ Soulless  _ as a nod to the idea that people without marks just are inherently bad, or wrong in some way.”

“That’s not you,” Jemma said, sitting up on her elbow so she could see him. 

“I know. It’s just, is that how other people see me? As some monster? For something that isn’t my fault? I mean, I know at least one person does.”

“Disintegration,” Jemma commented.

He laughed, and leaned over Hunter to kiss her. Hunter grumbled at being displaced from Fitz’s chest.

“That concept is flawed anyway,” Jemma continued. “There is no actual proof that souls exist, or that soulmates, and in turn  soulmarks , have any connection to a quote unquote soul. It’s just a cutesy name we came up with for them. There’s no scientific basis for  soulmarks in the first place. So, being born without one doesn’t equal you being inherently anything, especially not evil like that man in the movie. He was deranged, sure, but there’s the whole nature versus nurture, and psychosis to take into account. It’s a lazy reach to say that because someone doesn’t have a  soulmark , they don’t have a soul, and they should be ashamed of themselves.”

“Seconded,” Bobbi said. “I’d love to see a romantic comedy or something with people without soulmarks, myself. I think that’d be refreshing.”

“That’s it, we’re quitting SHIELD and taking on the film industry,” Hunter said. “Watch out world, I’m about to blow your mind.”

He was about to respond when his phone went off on the bedside table. Bobbi passed it over without having to ask for it, and he checked his incoming messages. 

“Fuck,” Fitz grumbled. “I have to go to work.”

“Why?” Jemma asked. “It’s your day off.”

“Tell that to the tech who broke something. I have to go fix it.”

“You could barely stand an hour ago,” Hunter pointed out.

“Yeah, well, I’m just going to have to make do.”

“You still have your crutches,” Jemma said, nodding to his closet.

“Or you could just let me help you,” Hunter said.

“You sure you want to hang around the lab all day, leading me from table to table? All day.”

Hunter kissed him.

“I’m sure I don’t want you stumbling around hurting yourself. I’m sure that I’d rather spend time at your side that be worried you’re passed out somewhere where a tech could break you, too.”

“Okay, but no complaining when you get sick of me.”

“Baby,” Hunter cooed at him, “I haven’t gotten sick of you yet, and I never will.”

In the kind of stunningly soft domesticity Fitz had only dreamed about, had only seen in movies, Hunter helped him out of bed and helped him get dressed, kissing his bared skin as he first undressed him from his pajamas. There was a moment where Fitz saw Hunter searching, and then another moment where he caught himself in realization.

“I don’t have any,” Fitz said softly, as Hunter brushed his fingers unconsciously over the exact spot on his ribs where Hunter’s  soulmarks were and then fell to the spot on his hip that mirrored Bobbi’s. If Jemma’s were easier to reach, he was sure Hunter’s fingers would’ve gone there next, just out of habit. “But if I did, they’d be for you. For all of you. I didn’t think I could have this, but I’m so glad I found you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Scis and Spies just makes me so happy, y'all. If you want to take to me about Scis & Spies being perfect together, you can find me on tumblr as kaytikazoo!! Thank you for reading!
> 
> -k


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